Professor Serena Viti
In this talk Serena will discuss the multi-million year cycle of star formation and how it may vary in the history of the Universe. In particular, Serena will illustrate how important molecules are, especially as tools to explore and characterize the physical conditions, energetics and evolutionary stages of the gas and dust that eventually end up in stars. She will present examples of recent studies of star formation in external galaxies and show how one can use molecules as powerful diagnostics of the evolution and distribution of star forming gas.
Serena Viti is a Professor of Astrophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London (UCL). She moved to the UK to read Astrophysics at Queen Mary College, and then moved to UCL to work on the spectroscopy of very cool stars during her PhD in the mid 90s. After her PhD she changed field and started working in the areas of star formation and astrochemistry at UCL. After a couple of postdoctoral fellowships in UK and abroad, she obtained an STFC Advanced Fellowship and moved back to UCL as a lecturer in 2003. She is the secretary of the European Astronomical Society and serves on several STFC panels and committees. Her research interests span a wide range of topics but are all centred around the role of molecules in space, especially in galactic and extragalactic star forming regions.
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